September 19, 2020

After RBG’s Death, Democrats Are Donating Record Amounts

ActBlue raised a staggering $56 million yesterday alone.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks during a discussion on the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

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When news broke that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died, the first instinct of many Democratic donors was to open their wallets—in the first hour after her death became public, Democratic fundraising outfit ActBlue said it raised $6.2 million, and the following hour $6.3 million. The blistering pace continued overnight and through Saturday afternoon had raised a total of $56 million.

ActBlue raises money for campaigns and PACs, so it will be a while before it shakes out exactly which groups or candidates are benefitting from the surge in donor interest, but the Get Mitch or Die Trying, a campaign organized by the Pod Save America hosts, claimed it had raised $13 million through ActBlue by early afternoon on Saturday.

The group notably does not actually target Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in his reelection bid against Democrat Amy McGrath, but rather sends money to 13 key races where Democrats have the best chance of flipping a seat. 

For some context, in 2018, the average winning Senate campaign cost about $15.7 million, so $13 million in 18 hours is a tremendous haul for Senate Democrats.

While the money may not stop McConnell from pushing through a floor vote on a Trump nominee for the Senate before the election, that hasn’t stopped Democrats (and some Republicans) from quickly jumping on Ginsburg’s death as a fundraising opportunity. In fact, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa), launched her first appeal even before Trump was informed of Ginsburg’s death.

Notably, all of this fundraising focuses on relatively small dollar amounts—campaigns and regular PACs are limited to donations of just $2,800. As the fight in the Senate develops over the next few weeks, a large part of the battle will be the television ad war, which will likely be funded by dark money groups, on both sides, who can rely on deep-pocketed donors who have no limits on how much they can give. Already, by Saturday morning, the sense that the fight would hinge largely on money was striking, with public statements over preparations for the fight sounding more like a high-stakes auction: Demand Justice, a progressive dark money group founded by a former Biden aide, pledged to spend $10 million to block any Trump nomination, and a spokesperson for Judicial Watch, a conservative dark money group, told the New York Times, “We will match their $10 million and whatever it takes.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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